


a laugh a day

by omaken



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV)
Genre: Fluff and Crack, M/M, Post-Endgame, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-26 18:40:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30110316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/omaken/pseuds/omaken
Summary: The first time it happens, Sam really thinks it’s an accident. The aftermath of adrenaline after a hard-fought battle.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 90





	a laugh a day

The first time it happens, Sam really thinks it’s an accident. The aftermath of adrenaline after a hard-fought battle.

\---

“Sorry,” Barnes says softly from somewhere on Sam’s left. They’re in the dingy garage of his folks’ Louisiana home, Barnes sticking around to help with some much needed repairs. 

Sam feels a warm hand – the one made of flesh and blood – on the small of his back while the metal arm reaches above him to grab a toolkit from the shelf Sam is puttering around with. One thing Sam’s been learning lately is just how tactile Barnes is. Of course, being on the run for a year followed by five years of nothing and the abrupt chaos of being blipped back into the heat of battle didn’t leave much opportunity to get to know one another. But this? The quiet moments in the relative calm of no impending world catastrophe have given Sam a glimpse of who Barnes is off the battlefield.

As Barnes removes his hand, his fingers brush against Sam’s side. Now, Sam can’t exactly help the squeak he lets out, nor can he control how his arm comes slamming down to his side, an instinctive defense against an imagined enemy. Look – he’s got older cousins, okay? Sam knows full well the horrors of being held down and tickled until he’s crying with tears of laughter, and that kind of visceral reaction isn’t something so easily trained away.

Barnes’s initial reaction is one of mild confusion and concern. Sam makes a mental note that someone has got to work with Barnes on the whole staring thing, because even without the general murderous aura of the Winter Soldier, his grizzled, confused stares are still A Lot to take in.

The confusion slowly fades though, morphing into a lazy grin that’s sure to haunt Sam’s nightmares well into the afterlife. 

“No,” Sam says firmly. “Absolutely not.”

There’s unfortunately the small complication of Barnes being conveniently positioned between Sam and the only exit out of the garage. Sam’s quick glance to the door apparently isn’t as subtle as he hopes for on account of Barnes’ grin growing impossibly smugger. 

Throwing dignity to the wind, Sam makes a run for it, the sounds of Barnes’ genuine laughter echoing behind him.

\---

Barnes doesn’t give chase. Sam’s not entirely sure where Barnes runs off to, but the house is eerily quiet all afternoon. And he’s not saying he’s being paranoid, but as he grabs leftovers from the fridge for lunch, he has the distinct feeling of prey being stalked.

“Did you know,” a voice – _Barnes’s_ voice – says from behind the fridge door, “that the Soviets considered tickling a viable form of torture?”

Sam takes a deep breath and tries to calm his racing heart because where the _fuck_ did Barnes come from. He’s not successful, if the languid smirk on Barnes’ face is any indication. Asshole.

“I’m serious,” Bucky says, with all the earnestness of a toddler telling a parent the Earth is flat, and Sam really has no idea what to do with that. “It leaves no marks and the victim always breaks.”

Sam scowls. He thinks back to being held down by his cousins and having the snot tickled out of him, and there’s no way in hell the Soviets or any other sovereign nation were extracting intel from prisoners via _tickling._ He says as much to Barnes.

“Ten bucks says you’d break.”

The thing is, Sam is, like, ninety-five percent sure Barnes is just fucking with him. It’s just that the other five percent is sufficiently cowed by the resting murder face Barnes has got on at all times. Sam’s natural response is to scowl harder. Barnes stares back impassively, unblinking. Sam’s eyes begin to water when finally, Barnes raises a single eyebrow and flashes him a wry, sardonic grin. 

Sam is ninety-nine percent sure Barnes is just fucking with him.

\---

The encounter is mostly forgotten in the deluge of never-ending paperwork and mission reports. _Mostly_ . Usually it’s a warm hand on Sam’s shoulder, on the small of his back, or – as of late – a finger pressed a little too knowingly into Sam’s side as if to say _I know – and I know that you know that I know, but I’m not going to say anything._ It takes all of Sam’s years of considerable training to will his body not to react.

But Barnes seems to derive some twisted sense of satisfaction from it, and well, if he wants to act like a child then Sam’s absolutely not going to give him the satisfaction.

It mostly works, until they’re both assigned to clear out a HYDRA warehouse along the Hudson.

“How did this happen?” Bucky demands. He’s already got a knife in his metal hand and a glock in the other, eyeing their surroundings balefully.

Sam rolls his eyes. “We’re the only ones here.”

“What. Did. You. Do.” Bucky asks again, punctuating every word. Also, the extremely put upon look on his face is hilarious and honestly kind of cute.

“Redwing got stuck. I reached in to get him.” He shrugs, which sends a jolt up to his shoulders on account of both his wrists currently being locked in place in the cylindrical holes he’d reached into. Some sort of magnets, most likely, as his bracers had reacted to whatever was inside.

“What’re you doing?” Sam asks.

“Calling someone who can get you out.” Sam thinks he hears Barnes muttering about Redwing under his breath, but tables that line of discussion in favor of the more pressing matter.

“Who?” Because there really aren’t many people Sam would be okay with seeing him in this position.

Barnes shoots him a withering look. “Lang. But hey, if you want me to phone it in to Hill and Carter, I could do that, too.”

There’s nothing to say to that, so Sam just scowls instead.

As it turns out, getting your wrists bound in a fascist organization’s evil machine makes for a pretty boring afternoon. Barnes manages to rotate the shackles into a better position with his vibranium arm so that Sam’s at least able to turn around and sit on the floor, then he manages to find a couple of chairs that Sam can lay out on which improves the blood flow to his arms. 

“My hero,” Sam says with the appropriate amount of sarcasm. 

Eventually, Barnes must decide the warehouse really is empty because he plops down next to Sam with a grunt. He passes the time by absently rolling his knife across his knuckles, which, okay, Sam can admit is pretty fucking cool, but he’s not letting Barnes know that. 

“My nose itches.”

Barnes only sighs. He reaches over – with the metal arm because he’s an _asshole_ – and rubs the tip of Sam’s nose just right, only the hand is ice cold and Sam has to actively try not to shiver.

“You know,” Barnes says dryly, “you really would lose that bet.”

It takes Sam a few seconds to realize what he’s even talking about. “Would not. You keep bringing that up, and I’m gonna think you’re looking for an excuse to touch me,” he teases, and grins. It has the desired effect – Barnes’s ears turn a bright red, but to his credit, he recovers quickly.

“Nah, I just think it would be pretty embarrassing for you,” Barnes says. 

And okay, this joke has run its course – really, he applauds Barnes for running the long game, but he doesn’t believe for a second that Barnes has some super secret assassin tickle powers that are going to break him.

“Fine.” Sam says, shrugging. “Do your worst.” He figures at the very least, he can lord this over Barnes for at least the next month. Sadly, and in hindsight, this ends up being the last coherent thought Sam will have for the next several minutes. The smirk on Barnes’s face should’ve been the first clue that this was not going to go the way Sam had expected.

“Whatever you say,” Barnes says lightly. He hesitates for a moment before bringing both hands to Sam’s sides. 

Sam sucks in a breath in anticipation. He thinks about tickle fights with his cousins and how dumb this is going to be.

Except, “this” is less like the tickle fights Sam and his cousins used to have as kids and more a relentless, highly targeted assault on all of his most ticklish spots. Barnes does this thing where he rubs the pads of his thumbs over one of Sam’s ribs and Sam loses it. More precisely, his vocal chords decide to let out a wholly undignified shriek which he has absolutely zero control over, and then his entire body spasms. He clenches his fists, bites down on his lip, squeezes his eyes shut, body trembling with the effort of not giving in.

“Seriously?” Bucky says with a disbelieving chuckle. “Holding it in is worse, you know.”

Vaguely, Sam is aware he’s now on the floor and his arms are above him again. With a final tremble and against his better judgment, he lets go. On the one hand, this means he’s no longer trembling with the monumental effort of holding in his laughter. On the other hand, once the laughter starts, it’s impossible to stop, which is infinitely worse. 

Barnes seems to find the whole thing hilarious. Sam’s going to fucking kill him. Unfortunately, every profanity dies on his tongue and all he can do is glare at Barnes while dissolving into helpless laughter.

“I just want you to know that we’re at about a two out of ten right now.” Barnes’ voice is so damn smug that Sam tries again to swear at him. The words die on his lips, drowned out by his own hysterical laughter.

“No, really,” Barnes continues, pleased as fucking punch with himself. “I’m barely even trying here.”

He’s not entirely sure what Barnes does – something where he digs his thumbs firmly into a spot just above Sam’s underarms and wiggles them back and forth – but whatever the science behind it is, Sam’s entire body jolts. The laughter catches up with him a second later. He’s faintly aware of attempting to twist his body sideways to escape the onslaught, but it doesn’t really work on account of the whole wrists-being-shackled thing.

“Come _on,_ ” Barnes wheedles with all the faux-petulance of a five-year old. “You can make it stop any time.”

“Fine!” Sam screams, and immediately, blessedly, the assault finally stops. Despite the fact that he feels like he’s run a marathon, and the fact that he knows his face is flush with sweat, and that he’s acutely aware of how disheveled he must look in a distinctly post-sex way. There’s also the fact that he feels like he’s floating, muscles and tendons completely limp and spent. It’s honestly kind of relaxing, but there’s no chance in hell he’s letting Barnes know that. Besides, like he said, he's pretty sure this is a fluke - the result of adrenaline and frankly, the first physical contact since the Blip.

The smirk Barnes flashes him tells him Barnes knows exactly what he’s thinking anyway. “Told ya,” Barnes says indulgently.

“You’re telling me,” Sam says breathlessly, more directed at the ceiling than Barnes, “that Hydra had you _tickling_ intel out of the people they captured?”

That seems to snap Barnes out of whatever reverie he’s in because he snorts, turning back to Sam. “Nah,” he says easily. “I was just fucking with you about that part. Why would they need some soldier to do the interrogations when they had psychotic doctors lining up to do it?” 

Barnes shrugs. Sam can read his body language well enough now to know he’s not upset at least. “Apparently, they thought it was important to stuff my head full of useless knowledge. Guess they thought some of it might come in handy on a mission.”

This is one of the few times Barnes has ever initiated a conversation about his time with Hydra, and it _feels_ like a breakthrough moment that Sam should be treating seriously, but instead what comes out of his mouth is “...and you thought applying that knowledge on me was the best way to use it.”

“You seemed to enjoy being the recipient,” Bucky says, sage-like and infuriatingly calm. He raises an eyebrow, but before Sam can respond, the dulcet tones of Scott and Hope’s voices fill the warehouse and Barnes just taps his own temple as if that’s supposed to mean something before sauntering off to meet them.

Sam lets his head clunk against the solid frame of the contraption behind him. Coworkers, indeed.

\---

If Sam notices a pep in Barnes’s step and a self-satisfied look in his eye over the next week, well, he absolutely doesn’t acknowledge it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell with me about sambucky (@st4rlabsforever)
> 
> I wrote some more but didn't finish it, so I might add on later


End file.
